Albert Einstein Quotes

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.

I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind... to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)

The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against traditional religion as the "opium of the masses"—cannot hear the music of the spheres.

One always likes to do the things for which one has ability.

The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.

We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war.

The longing to behold this pre-established harmony [of phenomena and theoretical principles] is the source of the inexhaustible patience and perseverance with which Planck has devoted himself ... The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program, but straight from the heart.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

Common sense needs constant reappraisal.

The theoretical idea ... does not arise apart from and independent of experience; nor can it be derived from experience by a purely logical procedure. It is produced by a creative act. Once a theoretical idea has been acquired, one does well to hold fast to it until it leads to an untenable conclusion.

The single most important decision any of us will ever make is whether or not to believe the universe is friendly.

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as hard duty. Never regard study as duty but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

Imagination without knowledge may create beautiful things, knowledge without imagination can create only perfect ones.

The individual who has experienced solitude will not easily become a victim of mass suggestion.

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.

On the other hand, the concept owes its meaning and its justification exclusively to the totality of the sense impressions which we associate with it.

Newton did not know what happened to the apple, and I can prove this when the next eclipse comes.

A bartender is just a pharmacist with a limited inventory.

The most practical solution is a good theory.

By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be represented as a bête noire, the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

It is a precarious undertaking to say anything reliable about aims and intentions.

If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don't read that hogwash, but rather leave it for the reptile from whom it has been fabricated.

Compound interest on debt was the banker's greatest invention, to capture, and enslave, a productive society.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.

The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.

You have to color outside the lines once in a while if you want to make your life a masterpiece.

Those who manage their way into a crisis are not necessarily the right people to manage their way out of a crisis

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

Life is like riding a bicycle. If you want to stay balanced you've got to keep moving forward.

Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the only one whom fame has not corrupted.

Non-comprehenders are often distressed. Not you, though-because with good humor you're blessed. After all, your thoughts went like this, I dare say: It was none but the Lord who made us that way.

Work is the only thing I do to escape the corruption of praise.

I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect I am not a Jew.

The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.

Condemnation before investigation is the highest form of ignorance.

When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes; when you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours. That's relativity.

We must remember that we do not observe nature as it actually exists, but nature exposed to our methods of perception. The theories determine what we can or cannot observe...Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.

Education is only a ladder to gather fruit from the tree of knowledge, not the fruit itself

In conclusion I wish to say that in working at the problem here dealt with I have had the loyal assistance of my friend and colleague M. Besso, and that I am indebted to him for several valuable suggestions.

To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

The words of language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images.

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves. This ethical basis I call the ideal of the pigsty.